Colgate University has introduced an official sexual education class on campus. “Yes Means Yes” is a series of five non-credit classes held on Wednesday evenings over dinner from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The topic of discussion will be Colgate’s “hook-up culture,” what one wants in a relationship, how to navigate one’s own sexuality better and how to help others with these areas. Facilitators will focus on the formative novel, Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape.

Berger selected Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape, written by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, to emphasize positive sexuality and consensual sex. An individual chapter is assigned for each week’s discussion in order to have a strong foundation for conversation and plenty of participation.

I used to teach at Colgate and it was a place dominated by alcohol-oriented frat parties with lots and lots of date rape. I had a student who was raped by someone in her dorm and she didn’t want to press disciplinary charges (let alone legal charges) because she had already gotten the idea that she would be shunned by her fellow students. She decided it made sense to get out of dodge after getting all sort of nasty comments.

Furthermore, the board of trustees was dominated by good old boys. Most faculty disliked that culture but there was a cohort of ultra-conservative professors who railed against feminism and who thought restrictions on drinking and frats demasculinized men. It was decades after women were allowed in but there will still alums and some faculty who weren’t happy about that. In other words, it’s great that this class is being offered. However, if the culture is anything like the way it used to be, it’s a rather small drop in the bucket.